climate speech, he stated that “Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. Andour national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbatethe problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climatewill be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.It’s relevant.”The President's strong commitment to using climate pollution as the standard by whichKeystone XL will be decided means his decision to reject it should now be easy.Objective analyses of the tar sands pipeline show that the climate effects of thisdisastrous project would be significant. But the State Department’s SEIS, which willinform the President’s decision, was prepared by a consulting firm that lied on itsdisclosure form about whether it had worked for TransCanada and other oil companieswith a direct stake in the Canadian tar sands.We are calling upon you to suspend the Keystone XL review process due to our seriousconcerns that Environmental Resource Management (ERM), which wrote the bulk of theSupplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), lied about its businessrelationship with TransCanada and other oil companies on its conflict of interest forms.Our concerns are as follows:

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ERM – whom the State Department allowed TransCanada to hire to prepare theSupplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) – lied on its conflict of interest disclosure form when it said it had "no existing contract or workingrelationship with TransCanada”, the company seeking the permit. In fact, ERMhas been involved since at least 2011 in the Alaska Pipeline Project, a jointventure of TransCanada and ExxonMobil.

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ERM also lied on its conflict of interest disclosure form when it certified that itdid not have a “direct or indirect relationship ... with any business entity thatcould be affected in any way by the proposed work."

publicly available documents show that in the period 2009-2012 the firm wasworking for over a dozen of the largest energy companies involved in theCanadian tar sands which stand to benefit if Keystone is built, includingExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Total and Syncrude.

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The State Department failed to independently verify ERM’s claims, even though asimple internet search would have revealed these relationships. We believe theDepartment also violated its own conflict of interest screening guidelines, in spiteof having agreed last year to “develop measures that will provide for additionalverification of potential organizational conflicts of interest between prospectivethird-party contractors and the applicant for a Presidential permit.”

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We, the undersigned, request that you take three actions to bring integrity to the decision-making process on Keystone:

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First, we ask that you pursue disciplinary actions to hold ERM accountable for lying on its conflict of interest form. The State Department's Interim Guidancefor the use of third-party contractors makes it clear that conflict-of-interestobligations are ongoing, and states that "any deliberate non-disclosure or misrepresentation of facts relevant to the OCI disclosure certification requiredmay result in immediate termination and disqualification of the offeror/contractor from future third-party contracts.

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Second, we ask that you re-start the SEIS proposal process given that, if federalrules had been properly followed, ERM would not have been allowed to conductthe SEIS.

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Third, we ask you to request a new Inspector General investigation to investigatehow a contractor with clear conflicts of interest was allowed to write the U.S.government’s assessment of Keystone XL, and why the State Department has sofar failed to bring those conflicts of interest to light.The public expects the State Department to perform a transparent and independent reviewof this project’s impacts on the environment and the global climate before the decisionreaches President Obama’s desk.As someone who has championed open and transparent government and strong action onclimate, we know that you share our concerns that the Keystone XL pipeline needs to beevaluated on its merits. It is critical that the report on which the Administration’s decision

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Business Week

,Secrets, Lies, and Missing Data: New Twists in the Keystone XLPipeline(July 11, 2013).

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Interim Guidance for the Use of Third Party Contractors in Preparation of Environmental Documents by the Department of State (2012)